After a year of lull, hotels exclusively serving animals enjoy a boom in occupants. A normalization process launched July 1 in Turkey that ended most restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic, restored reservations for hotels. As their human owners are finally able to enjoy long vacations, cats and dogs are accommodated at animal hotels across the country.
Animal hotel owners say they are fully booked this summer and are struggling with rising demand. The hotels, usually located in big cities, serve as saviors of pet owners who cannot find someone to take care of their animals, as they head to their hometowns in other parts of the country or to vacation resorts in the south.
Tarkan Özvardar, a proprietor of an animal hotel in the capital Ankara and a dog trainer for three decades, said in the absence of curfews and intercity travel restrictions people are now making up for last year and are traveling in droves for vacations. “We are too busy nowadays. Most people leave their pets here while others seek training for their dogs,” Özvardar, who also works as a dog trainer, told Anadolu Agency (AA) Friday.
He said most people complain of being unable to find a place for their animals but they usually make last-minute plans for that task. “We have a certain capacity and our hotel was fully booked one month before. It is normal as more and more people go on vacation after the normalization and due to a nine-day Qurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha) holiday,” he said.
